""First, they came for KKKate, and I did not speak out because I was a leftard.""

When they came for the leftards there were no KKKates left to defend their freedoms.

I see this as an attempt by morons to regulate the internet.

I for one will not sit on the sidelines on this. If I get hauled up in front of those human rights pustules they will answer for what they do. The bungholes concerned can take that any way they want too.

I loved seeing Monkeyboy (PSA) calling SDA commenters "fellow travelers". The irony nearly burnt a hole in my monitor.

These morons don't care what happens, so long as they get their licks in. You ever wonder why you can't talk sense to a Lefty, just read a couple of these comments and learn.

It isn't that they don't agree, its that if you say white they will automatically say black just to see the look on your face when they say it.

They don't want a free country. What they want is conservatives in labor camps. Go read those comments and tell me you don't agree, eh?

If I allegedly posted anything about alleged Dodges ... I was misquoted ... same thing about alleged hunting with alleged minivans ... maybe a few other alleged things.

The funniest one is Robert McClelland, who last time I checked, still had a photo up on his site identifying a Conservative MP's campaign worker as a "hate blogger" or some such. Kinsella then linked to it.

Despite begin told in his comments he was wrong.

Liberals had a policy resolution to regulate the internet to make it more socialist.

You can say white males are bad and you hate them as often as you like, ditto Christians, Americans.

Human rights commissions don't care since the charter they want rights for everyone but me.

The right to free speech, the fascists could care less. Many of them are guilty of far worse.

The funniest one is Robert McClelland, who last time I checked, still had a photo up on his site identifying a Conservative MP's campaign worker as a "hate blogger" or some such. Kinsella then linked to it.

The left is filled with hate so them accusing anyone else of it is rich. course they are so blind to it they think it should be natural.

Anyone who supports affirmative action is guilty of hate.

But the left knows the law works for them, not against so they are immune.

If Conrad Black was a lefty would he be in jail? Not a chance.

Ok, I'm a baseball fan. The successful managers all say that they ask their players to do things they are capable of doing. I suggest that we ask our players to set up a committee/inquiry/whatever to look at the HRCs ... all political stripes.

Please consider every space to mean space and the word "alleged" or "allegedly" ... what ever fits.

Supporters of the Liberals, NDP and anything further left are intellectual adolescents whose reaction to any challenge to their circumscribed and juvenile world-view is an attempt to shut down by shouting down. They are the product of an intellectually challenged educational system and are so emotionally and developmentally stunted that they need the power of the state to protect their fragile egos from the meanness of reality.

Leftism truly is a mental illness, leaving its sufferer suggestible to all sorts of conspiracy theories (see AGW), prone to irrational fits of rage (see Bush derangement syndrome) and unable to frame any issue other than via their emotions - their favourite arguments all start with "I feel". Sufferers are immune to facts, have no ability to integrate data to form opinions and have never been exposed to the scientific method.

Pity the leftists. They may call us "knuckledraggers" but they are all to cognizent of their failure to evolve into thinking, critical and sentient individuals (vice collective hive minds). The best example is the idiocy of biofuels - turn uncounted fields of food crops to produce feel-good oil replacement, but fail to realize that creating scarcity of food crops will affect the poorest of the poor by raising prices. But the leftards feel good because they now have 10% ethanol in their Volvo gas tanks. Who cares about little brown people starving in countries far away.... Lefties sure don't.

Please, any of the regular lefties here, do try to refute the above in words of two syllables or more. You will be graded on original thought, grammar and readability.

If the leftards I've read lately really think they are so pure as they are, they might be in for a surprise. The pompous arses are as libelous as anyone in the blogosphere especially towards conservatives. Of course that's open season. We know.

I think as bloggers we do need to be careful not to slander anyone in the legal sense. Blogging is media after all, and if we want our blogs to be respected and treated like media we do have to mind that slander laws are not broken. However anything that is factual is fair game, ie: Kinsella is a has been.

That being said section 13 and the Human Rights Commission need to go the way of the donkey.

I have long felt that there would be coming legal battles over the use of the WWW. This is not the first; nor will it be the last. This phenomenon may be focused upon Canada right now, but many countries will eventually go through something similar.

We can learn lessons from history - in particular the Reformation in Europe. Many attempts had been made in previous centuries to correct the errors of the Established Church of the time. For the most part, the Roman Church was able to stifle public opposition even though underground churches existed. When the printing press was invented in northern Europe, it had the economic effect of lowering the cost of publication. The inventor of the press (Gutenberg) felt it imperative to publish the Bible and make it available to those who had not had easy access to it previously. The greater access to the Bible and to other publications written by Reformers and other opponents of the Established Church allowed opposition to the Roman Church to grow and eventually diminish its political power in Europe.

Now, whereas there are clearly similarities between the some of the ideas in Scripture and some of the ideas in a liberal democracy, it is equally clear that they are not identical. Therefore, the analogy holds only insofar as seeing a new media technology enable a group or groups to become media participants who had heretofore not had the economic ability to become publishers.

However, to that end, I think the analogy is rather close. The WWW clearly lowers the cost of publication. That the political power of an existing establishment is being seriously challenged by people and groups taking advantage of new enabling Internet technologies should surprise no one. That the establishment is fighting back should also surprise no one. If history repeats itself (at least in a small way), then the relative political power of the establishment will be diminished in the coming decades or even years. Interested watchers should also not be surprised to notice that the Establishment will win some of the battles along the way.

I think I understand."This is an existential threat to the Canadian blogosphere. This is not about what we say - this is about who we are."

The nature of the internet and the blogosphere is what is being argued about here.

First, because of the structure of the internet, it is probably almost impossible to prove or disprove that Warman wrote the 'Cools comments'. The address might link him, but, since it is only an address, then, he might claim, as noted above, that his aunt's nephew's cousin's dog Kyoto wrote that.

Second, the structure of the internet makes it almost impossible to claim a direct result of the comments on the internet. The internet is not 'written'communication. It is oral communication. Oral communication, by its nature, has no specific author. And no specific reader. It's almost like gossip.

Third, defamation has to show a specific result, and I don't think that Warman can do that. There is no way to link comments made in gossip, or on blogs, to the heightened or lowered esteem of Warman in the community. His actions with regard to the HRC can't be separated from the perception that others have of him. Some applaud his behaviour (Kinsella, CJC); some disapprove. The comments made in gossip/blogs won't change anyone's mind on that.

Fourth, since Warman moved himself into the public sphere, by his misuse of the HRCs and the taxpayer's money, this means that his behaviour is open to scrutiny and fair comment. He may dislike the commentary but, he moved himself into the public sphere and his actions must be accountable to that public.

Fifth, Warman has to show intentionality, on the part of the defendants, to 'destroy the reputation' of Warman. His reputation as what? As a lawyer? I don't think he can do that. His reputation as an endless filer of HRC complaints?

After all, criticizing someone's actions could very well be deemed to do just that, ie, destroy one's reputation, but people in the public view are, and must be, criticized regularly.

Sixth- kate has quite a case - what about those blogs/bloggers who've linked her to the KKK, who've called her a nazi sympathizer and so on?

Warman's claims against all the defendants are that they, or their commenters, essentially 'called him names'. Well, heck, all of the defendants have been called names, real bad names, by blogs and commenters. So?

And yes, what about all the pundits who've called various politicians criminals?

So, I don't see that Warman has a case. He (and I repeat, my guess is that Kinsella is involved) just wants to make trouble.

But seventh - and importantly, the internet is not similar to either the print medium or television or radio. They are all, if you'll excuse the word, Linear. They all communicate from the author to the receiver. The receiver is a passive recipient.

The internet has no single authors, no single receivers; all people involved in the interent are active inter-agents. One person says/writes something. Instantly it is picked up by 1,000 other sites, corrected, added to, changed, and moved on to another 1,000 sites. There's no 'authority' or control over this vast, this enormous networked interaction.

The internet relies on something that the linear press, television and radio don't rely on. It relies on the intelligence of all participants.
The linear press/TV/radio rely only on the intelligence of the Author. The passive reader/listener is not deemed to have any reasoning capacity. They 'swallow' what they read or hear. That's why defamation and libel are relevant in these linear media.

But the internet is a completely different media system. It relies, absolutely, on the intelligence and reasoning capacity of its multiple users. So, if you write nasty things about kate, someone else in this huge blogosphere will instantly tell you that you have no basis in fact to call her such terms..and to shut up. Someone else will equally instantly say 'but, but'.. And someone else will consider the debate too childish...

That is, the decision-making process is within, is internal to, the blogosphere. Defamation and libel aren't really operative in the blogosphere because the system itself will self-correct the perception. It doesn't require an external judge.

If you want to continue to maintain your invalid perception of kate, by all means, do so. But only a few people will accept your conclusions since others have shown that they have no basis in fact.

It's not about libel; it's about power and dominance. And while I would like to be reassured by the "hoist on your own petard" argument, that presumes consistent and unbiased application, which, let's face it, just is not the case. Hypocrisy reigns supreme - it's a quintessential human failing.

Kate – your link to the good ghost is most apropos. If Canadians had full understanding of the mindset and values of academia, it would scare them blue. I hoist a beer with the local guys from the quarry and construction gangs to keep my immunization current, and the difference between the two communities is startling. As much as it hurts me to say it, academics are generally narrow-minded and elitist. I don’t object to the latter (indeed, I strive for it), but the former is an occupational hazard that few are equipped to resist.

Tenebris, another way to keep your immunization current is to spend some time with the men and women of the Canadian Armed Forces. If anyone has their heads screwed on right, and see the world for what it is, it's them who put their lives on the line to preserve the good we have. And few people are more clear-sighted and good-natured, especially when there's comradeship and beer involved (grin). I'd rather spend an evening with my troops than any number of academics. I tend to learn more from the troops....

ET: Dude you are one smart fella. Kate should hire you.

/standing ovulation

ET said “…the structure of the internet makes it almost impossible to claim a direct result of the comments on the internet. The internet is not 'written' communication. It is oral communication. Oral communication, by its nature, has no specific author. And no specific reader. It's almost like gossip.”

“The internet has no single authors, no single receivers; all people involved in the interent are active inter-agents.”

To misquote, your great learning has driven you mad.

Now, I understand where you want to go, but you really must stop reading Plato, stop worshipping McLuhan, and stop distorting the physics.

It’s exam time, and I have NO patience for silly comments.

People are projecting all their frustration and aspirations into this case, but I don't think that this case is going to be about lofty principles, HRC abuse, or section 13.1.

It is going to be interpreted according to the letter of the law. The judge will not see it as a human rights issue, or as a freedom of speech issue. He/she will look at their list of things that are required to be fulfilled for a successful suit, and judge based on that and that alone. So things like "how was his reputation harmed" will be important. Things like "he abused the HRC system" are not.

And if the judge does not follow the letter of the law, then there will be a case for an appeal, regardless of whether it is a positive or a negative ruling.

Judges don't make laws. And judges are very strict about what information is relevant to deciding a case, and what is extraneous.

Think about it. We live in an a society when a person can have a record of multiple violent offenses, but the standard of judicial practice is that in many cases such a record cannot be introduced as evidence to a jury on the grounds that it is prejudicial

So lets see if I have this straight. If we leftards don't howl at the moon alongside you then you'll sue us.

to ET comment @ 11:05
this may not have any legal merit but... if kate is responsible for what is posted to the world through her ip address (these comments) shouldn't warman be responsible for the cools comments if they came from his ip address?
russ

tenebris - I can't stand either Plato. Or McLuhan.

Absolutely nothing I wrote has anything to do with either of them. Plato was a top-down linear authoritarian controller. McLuhan was an ignorant idiot. Haven't you read enough of them to know that?

I stand by what I wrote about the internet; it's a CAS - a complex adaptive system. Read Watts or Castells on communication Networks. Or any complex theorist on networks.

By the way, when you give a conclusion, it's best to provide reasons; otherwise, your comments are trivia.

To our fiends on the left ...

If the enemies of freedom succeed and I believe some of them comment here occasionally, you will all be wishing you had set aside your petty political bias and stood up for Kate and others who are working to keep us free.

Freedoms are lost one at a time and little by little. You people here may see those gradual losses as victories for your side. I tell you now, you will regret being so narrow minded about what freedom actually means and how important every bit of it is to ‘true human rights’ and the democratic system. It is indeed a flawed system, but so far appears to be the best one available for the average schmuck. Thinking people will take human freedoms over human rights any day. Remember this … “A handful of might is worth a bagful of right”. Government who give you your rights will think nothing of taking them away on a whim. Freedom is another matter.

People who live in countries that are farther down the road to where Canada is heading are either, continually in revolt or they are drinking heavily. You cannot imagine what a completely controlled state is until you have lived it.

Slagging Kate and Kathy and dumping on Ezra is a very big mistake. It is Warman who would have us living in a police state. Kate and the others want a state where you occasionally may be insulted and have your feelings hurt.

Big difference.

If you really don’t see this, you are beyond help and I pity you and everyone else, if you should manage to have your way.

Anon - JTF2 are my neighbours; the low altitude para drops just delight my children. And, needless to say, there's a cold beer in my fridge for any current or former member of the CAF.

"This is an existential threat to the Canadian blogosphere. This is not about what we say - this is about who we are."

And who are we?

Non-leftists ( for lack of a better word...)

Although the blogosphere is one thing that the left does not control ( as they control the main stream media and the courts ) I think the threat goes beyond the blogosphere,

I think attacking the blogosphere is part of a bigger "plan"

I think our right to be non-leftists is threatened.

Human right courts ( and the United Nations ) have already begun to make it immoral to be a non-leftist.

and they are slowly moving on to the next step which is making it illegal to be a non-leftist.

I see a connection to what is happening to non-leftists bloggers such as Kate and what Fjordman in Europe is describing in this excerpt,

"...Our so-called leaders pass laws banning the opposition to our dispossession as "racism and hate speech."

"...In decadent societies of the past, the authorities didn't open the gates to hostile nations and ban opposition to this as intolerance and barbarophobia.
What we are dealing with in the modern West is not merely decadence; it's one of the greatest betrayals in history."

"...Everybody's supposed to keep their culture, except people of European origins?
Is that it?
Why is colonialism bad, except when my country, which has no colonial history, gets colonized by Third World peoples?"

"...I like cultural diversity and would hope this could be extended to include my culture, too."

"barbaraphobia"..I like that word...

The piece is called,

"Creating a European Indigenous People’s Movement"

and can be found at

http://www.brusselsjournal.com/node/3153

it is a bit long but very interesting.

rgraham - nice point. The problem is that the address of the Cools post was the same as the 'Lucy' posts - and Warman although at first denying his acts of posting as 'Lucy' finally admitted that he had done so..but you still can't assume that the user of this address was the one person. Or even one computer. I'm no computer expert but others have explained it on this blog before. Their conclusion seems to have been that it was 'highly probable' that it was the same user, but not 'beyond a reasonable doubt'.

Lori - I think it would be very difficult to show any harm to Warman's reputation. As what? Remember, his own activities are open to criticism, and this resulting possible damage to his reputation 'blurs' any specific finding of name-calling as damaging his reputation.

robert mcclelland - I think it's the left (warman, kinsella) who are always suing or threatening to sue. And, it's the left who insist on groupie communal behaviour. The 'right' is focused on the individual. Try again.

Posted by: Friend of USA at April 11, 2008 11:43 PM

Have you gone to see the new ENDGAME video on the internet. Google ENDGAME. It is free and over 2 hours long. World domination and the people they say are behind it.

ET - I generally like your thinking, but I've run out of charity on this one. You do not understand CAS. Period.

You project a narrowly-applied scientific theory well beyond its application areas.

You are guilty of, at the very least, sloppy presentation. You need to carefully study information theory, thermodynamics, response theory, general freakin' physics, and the distinction between inanimate systems and animate ones.

My apologies to our host for the OT, and for what may seem on the surface as very uncollegial comments.

I know I tend to cryptic, but you truly don't get the Plato/McLuhan reference? They're direct riffs on the quotes!

I think it's the left (warman, kinsella) who are always suing or threatening to sue.

So Harper and Levant are part of the left now? Um, no thanks. You can have both of those anti-free speechers back.

I remember when Canada was a free country and not under the rule of Marxists. Doesn't seem that long ago. Pity.

Defamation and libel aren't really operative in the blogosphere because the system itself will self-correct the perception. It doesn't require an external judge.

ET,

You bring a very good point.

Robert, you should be howling at the HRC's as much as we are, for your own self preservation. I don't think you see it that way though.

You see it as a "got ya" moment, a moment of almost erotic pleasure, if you had the guts to pick up a gun and hunt, it would be that moment of bringing down that big buck, but lawsuits by Warman are just as good for you, because he is only going after Conservative targets, so you can sit back, gloat, and feel superior.

That might change soon.

tenebris- I've spent years studying and writing on exactly those areas (information theory, thermodynamics, animate/inanimate, physics etc)..and have acceptance from my peers in these fields, including awards (best papers), requested publications in journals and edited collections, keynote speeches, and close working collaborations with people in physics and biology and bioengineering (publishing papers together and of course, constantly being asked to review papers in these fields of information in biological systems and the nature of complex systems). OK? I do know what I'm talking about.

And no, I don't get the Platonic/McLuhan references. As I said, I can't stand either of them. Don't try to claim that 'Socratic dialectics' is akin to the interaction on the internet. Not only was Plato, in his own views, far from Socrates, but I've never been a fan of the Socratic dialectic. And I can't abide, simply can't stand the vacuous ignorance of McLuhan.

Cheers - back to your marking papers! (I always used to find they went faster by starting at the back, with the references..).

Robert McClelland - are you incapable of systemic coherent thought, or are you merely too lazy?

Let me give you a little hint: the genesis of the Harper and Warman lawsuits are entirely different. Absent smoking gun (and Warman should re-think), fair comment based on legally justifiable derivation and reasonable person test will likely play a key role, aka "the woman is a whore" defense. If Warman thinks his reputation is damaged now, wait until this goes to court. Kate's legal situation is unique, and Warman screwed up in sweeping her into this.

Edgar,

at first I thought you were talking about a game, a video game,

I was going to say no thanks!

It seems interesting, I'll probably watch it tomorrow, it is too late now,

Thanks

>>>>>That might change soon.

Off course it will. I used the wayback machine (internet archive) to check if all that anti semitic stuff that Robert used to post was still in cache and lo and behold it was. If Kate loses her case I can see some prime mining from Robert's blogging fields. yummy, we are going to be rich

Give McClelland a break Tenebris. He is a collective ... refers to himself as we.

Hmm, Robert McCelland is still posting and no one is listening. Your right ET, the internet is working just fine indeed.

"He is a collective ... refers to himself as we. "
Heh, but he speaks for the people :(

ET - you are gracious. I regret I cannot be. I’ve held my peace for several years. I’ve read one of your more substantive papers, and I’ve reviewed the field. The cardinal sin of almost all its contributors is projecting a theory beyond its application limits. Perhaps this summer we can arrange a discussion. I’ll dig up your email.

I try, really I do, but I am weak...

http://xkcd.com/386/

Wow, many of the comments at stageleft are very anti-free speech. They speak of the improvements the precedent will bring, of a moderated blogosphere.

So, basically, if you say something that isn't true, you're in trouble. Sounds good, right?

Who decides what the truth is?
The government, of course.

ET: Dude you are one smart fella. Kate should hire you.
/standing ovulation

Now THAT was funny!

I believe ET is a she PiperPaul

First, because of the structure of the internet, it is probably almost impossible to prove or disprove that Warman wrote the 'Cools comments'. The address might link him, but, since it is only an address, then, he might claim, as noted above, that his aunt's nephew's cousin's dog Kyoto wrote that.

If I understand it correctly, there only needs to be a balance of probability shown in civil cases. It's enough to clearly show that the comments were similar to comments previously posted and that those comments came from consistent ip's/operating system combonations...

Second, the structure of the internet makes it almost impossible to claim a direct result of the comments on the internet. The internet is not 'written'communication. It is oral communication. Oral communication, by its nature, has no specific author. And no specific reader. It's almost like gossip.

ummm... The very fact that I was able to read the words that you had written above clearly indicates that the internet is "written communication"...

ENDGAME is a new documentary on the Bilderberg Group, Rothschild and Rockefeller families. Quite a bit of video from the Bilderberg meeting in Ottawa a few years ago. The new North American Union and Mexico-Canada-Alaska new toll roads and portions owned by Spain. They have equalized the dollar already. Explains the massive drive of the rural populations into the cities.

Their conclusion seems to have been that it was 'highly probable' that it was the same user, but not 'beyond a reasonable doubt'

"reasonable doubt" isn't the standard that's used in civil trials. In civil trials it only needs to be shown, on a balance of probabilities, that a thing is true.

ET & Tenebris ~ if you two ever agree to get together head-to-head to discuss CAS, please invite me. Not only because I grok the subject, and have read a dozen SEED papers, but also because I agree with both of you! (Now watch me tap-dance around that.) That colloquium I would fly across the country for (assuming of course I get to participate, not just observe ;-)

I'm not among those who wonder why [Flea] quit university teaching.

I am among those who wonder why anyone would fall for Flea's preposterous caricature of the academy.

Organizing your television-watching and eating habits so a 'human rights commission' would have no reason to object?

Good grief.

Some people will fall for any claims, no matter how outlandish.

i like the parts where the left blogs request support for Kate,shows how freakin' scary things really are, who's next?

You know, I start reading here, and I plan to compliment Kate for her brilliant essay, and I get carried away with Tenebris's challenge to ET. I apologize. That was rude. Your argument, Kate, is excellent, and that is what matters here, not CAS. Sorry for going off topic.

Kelly: I know, that's what made it so funny.

This is getting scary.

anonymousbloggerformerlyknownasrichardballwhichwasnothisrealname

When the left talk about a moderated blogosphere, they assume that it is they who will be doing the moderating.

When the left talk about enforcing human rights, they assume that it is they who will be doing the enforcing.

When a diversity committee is established at a university, it is assumed that it will be populated by left-leaning individuals who think in lock-step on all the matters that matter to them.

When the left talks about the sanctity of the Charter and the courts that re-write and interpret it as they please, they assume that it is they who will be doing the re-writing and interpreting.

When a right-leaning person comes near to any one of these apparatuses of power, the left goes ballistic and screams bias, hidden agenda, unsuitable, etc.

[A stellar example of the latter is the Liberal MP who claimed that anyone who believed that Jesus Christ was the Son of God was unfit for public office.]

The left's goal is a complacent, compliant populace submitting to the left's velvet totalitarianism.

And I am unanimous in this.

it's all about freedom isn't it.

You're up early.

"First, they came for Kate, and I did not speak out because I was a leftard."

...when they came for leftard McClelland there were no Kates left to speak against it.

You never were the sharpest knife in the drawer McClelland. If you think attacks on internet freedom only effect the "wrong brand" of offensive political posters. Think of your own liabilities.

This is a collusive attack on the internet with a partisan political motive drivng it and it is an attack on Canadian cyberspace in scope and precedent.

It might do you some good to drop your dogmatic partisanism and reflect in rational thought for a moment before going back into loud mouthed misanthrope mode...you have more to lose than most.

If you can't see that you are either cataleptic or morbidly stupid.

The left is using any tool, even a useless one like Lucy Warman, to try and squelch freedom of speech and if they could, thought. The wheels have been kicked off their leftard wagon, and their ass is dragging on the ground.

The left's goal is a complacent, compliant populace submitting to the left's velvet totalitarianism.-Richard

I wonder how many of you have paused to consider your own databases, and the google caches they lurk in? Have you thought about how you might be called to account for readers who have accused me of being bought and paid for by politicians? Of being a "Nazi sympathizer"? Who've denigrated my artwork? Who have posted fabricated "quotes" they've attributed to me?

Yes, and it has been my experience, at least, that people on the right side of the spectrum are far more generous in giving personal funds to causes in which they believe. But it's not just me, there are numerous surveys and studies that bear this out.

Those on the left side of the spectrum tend to seek funding from "the collective" in support of their causes. I don't suspect defending a civil lawsuit falls under the scope of the average grant or government funding scheme.

Unlike Kate, et al, many of those bloggers/commentators might have some difficulty raising the necessary funds to offset the whack of cash needed to secure competent legal advice.

"Wow, many of the comments at stageleft are very anti-free speech. They speak of the improvements the precedent will bring, of a moderated blogosphere."

This is the left's self destructive love affair with statist authoritarianism...it will eventually consume their freedom too, but they are too intellectually vacant or deeply indoctrinated in fallacious dogama to see it.

I find it interesting, hypocritical, and highly ironic—not to mention unjust—that the HRCs are, in fact, themselves, guilty of what they charge, prosecute, and punish law abiding citizens for, all done outside due process.

E.g., Unlike the benefit of the doubt virtually always accorded the favoured groups in Canada, the HRCs make mincemeat of the claims that the Stephen Boissoins, Kates, Ezras, and Kathys, not to mention Macleans, make on their own behalf. After rejecting any such claims out of hand, the Tribunals or Commissars (Commissioners), the Diana Moon Glampers* of the HRCs, then proceed both to name call the person charged and to hold identifiable groups up to ridicule and contempt. In Barbara Hall’s OHRC case, the slagging was premature: it happened without even benefit of a hearing.

* Diana Moon Glampers is the “Handicapper General” in Kurt Vonnegut’s hilarious black humour story, “Harrison Burgeron” (Google it), where all of society is under the jackboot of an HRC like state. For all of us worried—with very good reason—about where our society’s headed, this story’s a must read. It’s only a few pages long and hilariously funny—don’t read it while drinking coffee or red wine—but it beautifully sets up and skewers the kind of dystopian gulag towards which the Warmans of this world would happily take us. (From what I know of him, I believe he’d make a fine Handicapper General: maybe he’s even got a little military outfit in his closet already . . . )

The left blogosphere needs to think long and hard about their own "published" vulnerabilities. There but for the grace of God and the right's belief in freedom of speech, go their futures and their fortunes. They need to hope that vengeance doesn't enter into a new conservative collective. The moral high ground will be littered with the corpses of the intellectually eviscerated. He who is without sin...

i hereby at this time and in this manner fully and unconditionally recant any critical hurtful craven past commentary by myself that in any wise directly or indirectly cast any aspersion slight or lese majeste toward the estimable warren kinsella....i was wholly in error mistaken and misguided and apologize and retract with extreme grovelment knowing it was utterly MY wrongheadedness and wilfulness and error filled attitude that led to my egregiously over the top rude at times crazy talk.
i have come to realize mr kinsella is a political paladin protecting an ignorant populace from their excesses....free speech is a heady intoxicating wine which has been dispensed too lavishly at times in our society....i drank too deeply and am as contrite as is it possible to be considering my mental debauchery and appallingly unfair admittedly cruel expressions on the internet.
i earnestly seek and curry mr kinsella's favour and forgiveness and if there is anything...anything at all i can do to further his good works and the good works of the LPC he need only ask.

Ok, I'm going to pick a jumping off point here, and this person's sentiments are as good a place as any.

"But the left knows the law works for them, not against so they are immune.

If Conrad Black was a lefty would he be in jail? Not a chance."

YOU FOLKS ARE BEING DUPED! Don't you see it? It's not the leftards who are your enemy. It's not the dimwit who spews racial hatred on the net.

It's the Lawyers. Who makes up the bulk of legislators and who drives not only laws but policy too? Who advises and writes the words, refines them, seeks new opportunities for themselves and their firms? LAWYERS!

Think of what they have done with Family Court in the past decade and a half. Did you know that 40% of all new legal cases stem from Family Court? Have a look in a phone book and see how many lawyers offer services in Family Law. (Should be called guidelines open to the personal bias of presiding Judge.) Now, take this a step further. Imagine a Lawyers wet dream. Litigating endless complaints over words and conversations transmitted on the internet.

WOW! They are spinning and salivating worse than the Tasmanian Devil himself. If only they can pull it off. Now, you see the Family Law cash cow is only good for so long. The way things work 'round these parts is, make changes and let the pendulum swing all the way to the left, stop and then swing the other way, stop...you get the pic. Eventually it finds a mean. Plus, folks react, like a falling rate of marriages etc. That means a whole lot less cases for lawyers to agitate and prey upon. So they need further opportunities. Look at it as income averaging.

As to Conrad Black, I think the fix was on. Why him when there are so many? What good did this joke perpetrated in the name of justice do in the end anyway? Kind of like George Bush saving Iraqi's from Saddam.Yup, done a right good job George. Shades of Nam.

I've got so much to say about this, but people only read so much then go, NEXT. So Kate, you might be nasty, I don't know yet. If you are, you will hear from me. But I support you on Freedom of Speech, and have written to persons who have brought cases before HRC's before in an attempt to help them to understand that such things are a privilege, and not something to be abused. To cry Wolf once too often, does no one any good

I also think Internet freedom of speech threatens politicians, who are largely lawyers anyway. So don't look for a lot of help there. Judges were lawyers and represent the ruling class, as well they are purveyors of the cult mentality in many cases. The screw turns.

A piece of advice folks. Don't be so quick to label people leftards or neo con or other. Sometimes peoples' thoughts, attitudes and experiences transcend stereotypical labeling. Take me for example. I'm willing to listen until someone proves themselves incapable of maintaining a reasonable degree of objectivity and show that they prefer to have someone else do their thinking for them.

Hugger

remorse...remorse and shame....mixed together.....and sorry...genuinely blushingly sorry.....gushing over with contrition.....had no idea i was so deadened to other people's sensitivity and pain......i'm just a brute...it's that simple.....i could have been a moderator at stormfront i was so brutally callous...but that's ALL behind me now.....and the proof is i've just renamed my dog....his old name was 'shorty' but his NEW name is 'do something realistic about climate change."
i feel i've been reborn.

This had to happen. Just like a booming stock market, the progressives believe that the good times (the PC time)will go on forever. They do not see the bust coming.

Everything travels in cycles and the anti-PC side is just starting. As someone already posted, the PCers will still win some of the battles but the cracks in their amour is showing.

Where does the 'progress' in 'progressive' stop? It stops when (a) every single human being is paid the same amount, regardless of their contribution (b) every single human does or does not do as per dictated by their ruling elites (c) no human being thinks any unprogressive (i.e. "reactionary") thoughts, let alone communicates them.

This is called existing, not living.

I hereby retract anything I've EVER said, on the internet, in conversation, letters to the editor, or anywhere else. My contrition is double that of JB, I regret, I regret, I regret.

I was in a room once, where marijuana was being smoked, back in the 1960's, and may have inadvertently inhaled some of the smoke, thus addling my brain, and causing me to make remarks I now retract, for the past forty odd years.
Sigh.

It's scary going to those left blogs. Please don't make me go there again! Ewwwww!

richard evans - no, the fact that you can read the words on this blog doesn't make the blogosphere a 'written' form of communication. I know it sounds strange, but, it remains oral.

Oral vs literate isn't just a differentiation between whether the information is received by ear or by eye. It's also the structure of the interaction. I can't go into it here. Try an old book - Walter Ong. You can go into google for 'oral and literate communication' and find lots of research pointing out that the electronic system (email, internet) is an oral rather than literate structure.

It is also interesting to consider the difference between 'private' and 'public' in an oral culture. Quite frankly, an oral culture doesn't enable much privacy. In a literate culture, where information can be 'sealed' against interaction from others, you get a focus on privacy, individual ownership, storage of goods. In fact, the literate era saw the development of many systems of storage; libraries, museums.

It's very hard to control information in an oral age. I think a lot of laws that enable the individual to control information about themselves and others are going to be changed over the next years.

Skip said:
"They need to hope that vengeance doesn't enter into a new conservative collective. The moral high ground will be littered with the corpses"

Quite right! The collective illiberal left has to understand you can only kick a dog so much before it turns on you. The dogmatic left have engaged in an ideological war with principled conservatives which is both barbaric, craven and civilly distructive....the only thing that has saved them from a very painful counter devastation is that principled conservatives do not employ venal, craven dirty tactics. Principled conservatives preferring to debate and expose rather than repress, censor and intimidate.....but that could change because many many conservatives see the politically motivated oppression of the right by HRCs and their despotic PC camp followers as an agenda so foul that perhaps malevolent political aggression by the intolerant left should be dealt with using their methods.

Being principled means being a punching bag for the unprincipled...but there are limits to reasoned toleration....passive principled tollerance can change.

"Wow, many of the comments at stageleft are very anti-free speech. They speak of the improvements the precedent will bring, of a moderated blogosphere. So, basically, if you say something that isn't true, you're in trouble. Sounds good, right? Who decides what the truth is? The government, of course."

I can't speak for our commenters (and I understand that's what much of the discussion is about).

But I think the three of us who blog at Stageleft agree that anyone should be able to write pretty much whatever they want. I don't enjoy hateblogs, but I support their right to exist.

What I personally don't support is libel. It's happened to me twice. Once was funny (I was called a Chinese Communist Spy by a lunatic), and once it was not (I was accused by a blogger of threatening his wife and children, of being a Holocaust denier, and whole bunch of other very bizarre stuff, all completely bogus.) It did me no actual professional damage, as far as I can tell, but it was pretty horrible. I didn't take action in either case.

In this instance, I have huge concerns about a blogger being held liable for the content of his/her comments. I have less sympathy for those accused of actually alleging extremely damaging stuff against Warman that's unproven. That was done to me, and it was wrong.

oh no you don't dmorris...i'm WAY sorrier than you.....i just happen to be literally prostrate with a wholesome life affirming white liberal guilt......i'm stiff as a board with abject fear of offending someone..anyone.......why i'm so sorry about everything i just renamed my cat 'rosa luxemburg.'

Balbulican said: ... I have less sympathy for those accused of actually alleging extremely damaging stuff against Warman that's unproven. That was done to me, and it was wrong."

Agreed. But here's where the wheels fall off: Warman is alleged on the internet, with some evidence, to have posted scurrilous remarks about another, under an assumed name and identity. He denies that's true. But, a hearing is held that would illuminate the facts about a case in which he is an apparent participant, and which ais related to his alleged behavior, and he declines to participate (if I have my facts correct in regard to the most recent Lemire hearing...).
Further, he brings suit against his alleged libelers, and again, structures the suit such that he will not have to answer, other than by limited examination at court, to what, if any, role he might have had in the alleged posting. The implication is that he has something to hide, that while he may not have the posting in question, he may know more about it than has been revealed thus far. Warman needs to know, that in the world of truth and freedom, he doesn't get to hit and run. To do so makes him no different then those he chooses to go after.

I am among those who wonder why anyone would fall for Flea's preposterous caricature of the academy.

No need to pay heed to my preposterous caricature of the academy. The academy has made a preposterous caricature of itself without any help from me.

Well, a little. But I have grown out of it.

Skip: good point, but you're still making a couple of untested assumptions about what Warman does and doesn't know. I'm not knowledgeable enought about either libel law or technology, and any of the analyses on this issue I've read, on either "side" have seemed to start with a conclusion and cherry pick evidence that supports it.

In that way, I suppose I'm looking forward to a bit more clarity; more light, less heat.

Will someone explain to me why lawyers and others use the word "oral" (meaning: to do with the teeth and mouth) when they mean "verbal"?

Just thought I'd throw this in here and run away, giggling.

"In that way, I suppose I'm looking forward to a bit more clarity; more light, less heat."

That's what a trial is for Balby. You may want to keep that in mind rather than pronounce on the guilt of others as you have been doing.

The war is just getting started. It's interesting and very helpful that PEN and the Canadian Association of Journalists have taken sides. I believe Artists and their associations will get involved as well. They must in order to protect their industry, ideas and source of revenue.

Sarah Polley was on Duffy the other day and during their discussion about the film funding bill, Duffy brought up the HRC topic. She clearly took the side of free speech.

Musicians, Poets, Film makers, et al, must and will get involved. However one may feel about it, nothing like a little 'star power' to draw the publics attention and opinion.

In a larger sense, section 13.1 is a bludgeoning instrument, arbitrarily wielded against those whose opinions the undemocratic, and unelected HRC's don't agree with. Therefore it effects everybody in communications and especially those that professionally depend on it - whether that be bloggers, musicians, poets, film makers, the media, advertising agencies, advertisers, etc.

So, this lawsuit is simply a skirmish in the much larger battle in which, in my opinion, the HRC's are going to lose. As all those in communications start to realize that through the arbitrary and non-judicial nature of the HRC's that they are all open to attack and censorship, they will support the fight to overhaul, or abolish the HRC's.

The overwhelming odds are against the HRC's as they currently exist.

I am astonished that the Canadian federal government has not yet effectively dealt with the cancerous CHRC. Freedom of speech is not just "an American thing" it is a human race thing.

Perhaps the Canuck Six will be forced to flee to the US and launch a BloggoFreeCanada network. The CHRC-KGB may run rampant for a while, but, like all thugocracies, the Warman Wall will fall.

I would like to thank Robert "the Retard" McClelland for perfectly exemplifying my point waaaay back at Ap.11th 9:27.

Kate says white, Robbie the Retard instantly says "BLACK!!!" Kate says "just kidding, black!" Retardo says "WHITE WHITE WHITE WHITE!!!!!!!

I am under the impression that the only reason McClelland and his troll chorus remain un-sued and un-investigated is that the human "rights" lawsuit industry is currently under Leftist management.

Meaning you can't be sued for spewing vileness if you lean left. At the moment.

Robert the Retard is so busy slagging his enemies that he does not think "Gee, what would happen if the [gasp, shudder] Conservatives took over this operation? Oh no, look at my back catalog! There's a TON of stuff I could get sued over. I am so screwed if that happens. Maybe I should lay off the slagging and get on the protecting of my own sorry ass here!"

And that, repeated a zillion times over the last couple of years, is why I like to call him Robbie the Retard. Even a CHICKEN has more friggin' sense than that.

And now, balbulican. Dear Blob said: "I have less sympathy for those accused of actually alleging extremely damaging stuff against Warman that's unproven."

Blob, buddy. "...extremely damaging stuff"? Let us speak the truth ungilded, shall we? Mr. Warman has admitted, in court, under oath, to having previously done -exactly- what he is alleged to have done this time. I

WTF -is- it that forces you and your friends to continually ignore things like that?

This is YOUR personal ass on the line here Blobby. Just like Robbie the Retard you've got a back catalog that'll make a prime fishing ground for manufacturing libel suits. None of them will have any merit, but you old son will be stony f-cking broke all the same.

The thing that kills me the most is that I posted almost exactly the same thing over at Canadian Cynic and some mental giant called me a hate spewing racist. If I were of that mind to do so, do you think I could conjure up a 50K lawsuit over that? Some people seem to think so.

Either its a free country or it isn't, Blob ol buddy. If I'm not free, you're not either. Your continued, unrelenting, mindless rejection of that simple fact is just one more reason I mock you at every turn. Please grow a freaking synapse, for all our sakes.

Boy sounds like you Canadians need the protection of the U.S. Constitution! This is all obviously a Karl Rove plot to give us yanks an excuse to annex Canada and take over the tar sands!

Simply put at the top of your blogs "Nothing written or said here is true". There, disclaimer made. As meaningful as the imagined restoration of reputation ensuing from an apology. Perhaps some money is paid, an apology published.

None of that will change reality.

What with all the pseudonymous postings, has anyone else wondered if WK may himself have drawn that infamous swastika that he claims top have photographed in a boys washroom? Please, don't tell me the pro CHRC crowd is above that.

To our American friends,

You should keep an eye on this. It seems Democrats are ever tilting left and may eye some of the tactics being used elsewhere. Given the UN/OIC axis of evil and their bill to criminalize freedom of speech, who knows if a Democrat controlled government might not just acquiesce and attempt to amend the first amendment.

We didn't think it would happen here either.

Canada is just one of the fronts in this war.

You could all just take the Obama Approach:

"I didn't read the comments. I wasn't there when the comments were made. All the comments that the plaintiffs consider controversial are ones I vehemently condemn."

That won't fly when it comes to the Canadian Inquisition? Their chief weapons are fear, surprise, and a fanatical devotion to double-standards?

balbulican, there are a couple of points here, not that my opinion has any bearing on the legalities of the issue...

1. Richard Warman has posted hate speech under psuedonyms, and has admitted to this. He claims that he didn't post *this* hate speech, and to say so has damaged him. I would argue that the damage was done prior to this, and by his own actions.

2. For those who hate Kate and the posters on this site, you need not agree with her to see where this is headed. If Kate has never been affiliated with the national socialist party and you have called her a nazi, then her case is even one step stronger than Warman's. Warman has an established history, Kate has not.

3. The danger comes in splitting that hair. In civil court, you only have to prove that something is more likely than not. There are a lot of right wing bloggers who say all kinds of things about Kate, George Bush, and knuckledraggers in general, who would be at risk if this goes through. You don't have to like or respect right wing bloggers to see that they are defending the rights of everyone in their defence of themselves. If they win, the KKKate comments can continue as right wingers roll in fields of happy clover. If they lose, those people might have to lawyer up.

kathy shaidle - no, 'verbal' isn't the same as 'oral'.

'Oral' doesn't just refer to the objects of the mouth, tongue, teeth. It also refers to the mode of communication - oral versus written.

There's a huge reference of books and articles on the oral communication system. See, for example, Walter Ong's 'Orality and Literacy'. Lots of articles about oral cultures as differentiated from literate cultures.

'Verbal's main meaning is 'referring to words'. So, 'verbal' means a linguistic or word-based method of communication as differentiated from a gesture method or sign-method, neither of which use words.

Get the difference? Oral vs literate is a valid set of terms used in communication analysis.

ID said: "You should keep an eye on this. It seems Democrats are ever tilting left and may eye some of the tactics being used elsewhere. Given the UN/OIC axis of evil and their bill to criminalize freedom of speech, who knows if a Democrat controlled government might not just acquiesce and attempt to amend the first amendment."

And this is why, in the US, you must stand firm against the current challenges to the Second Amendment. The second amendment is what gives force and effect to the first. Without it, you cannot hope to hang on to the first amendment. There is a reason why the framers placed freedom of speech as the first, then backed it up with the second - they were experiencing the consequences first hand, as we are here, in Canada.

Kakistocracy \Kak`is*toc"ra*cy\
(k[a^]k`[i^]s*t[o^]k"r[.a]*s[y^]),
n. [Gr. ka`kistos worst + kratei^n to rule.]

Government by the worst men.

[1913 Webster]

Kate:

I think there is something wrong with the Libel Tourism thread. It is not accepting comments.

I Googled "Making Anagrams" and, out of 55 556 possibilities there for Richard Bruce Warman, copied the following, way at the top of the list:

"Barracuda Wrench Rim, Armada Rubric Wrench, Anarchic Rewarm Drub, Anarchic Warmer Drub, Archaic Brawn Murder, Chairman Redraw Curb, Chairman Warder Curb, Chairman Reward Curb, Armchair Brawn Cured, Armchair Craw Burned, Armchair Redrawn Cub, Armchair Warden Curb, Rearward Umbra Cinch, Rearward China Crumb, A Harridan Crumb Crew, A Drama Rubric Wrench, A Rabid Rewarm Crunch, A Crewman Hard Rubric, A Mach Redrawn Rubric, Armada Birch Crew Run, Baa Warder Crunch Rim, Macabre Cad Whirr Run, Barmaid Re War Crunch, Badman War Recur Rich, Armband Arch Cur Wire, Armband Craw Cur Hire, Armband Haw Crier Cur, Armband War Cure Rich, Barman Arch Crud Wire, Barman Craw Crier Duh, Barman Craw Curd Hire, Barman Craw Cur Hired, Barman War Chic Ruder, Barman War Crude Rich, Cardiac Harm Brew Run, Charade Cram Burr Win, Radiance War Brr Much, Arachnid Mar Brew Cur, Arachnid Maw Curb Err . . ."

Fun.

Dear daisy,

Many, many of us here in the Great Satan are fully aware of the universally repressive nature of the Left, and that no matter where its foul breath is present it seeks the same Big Nasty Brother power.

Fortunately, we already have a First Amendment and the Second Amendment we'll enforce it with. I pray it never comes to such an unavoidable option.

Free Canada. Free Humanity.

Not sure if I get the its who we are argument....bloggers or conservatives?

Anyway, the HRC issue is a problematic one. The lefter blogs are patting themselves on the back saying they are all reasonable and that of course there are limits on free speech....a right is something that describes a relationship of government/state power to the individual. This is where the argument is about the HRC's, it is not for the government shut down speech or communication (in the extreme) This would mean criminal prosecutions etc.

Now we have accepted some of that in the past and there is a fair debate to be had to how far, if at all you come off the line. This is why credible death threats are criminal, communication of burglary plans are a conspiracy...these are reasonable and well backed up limits on free speech, the government versus the individual. So lets dispose of the argument that there are limits, there will always be limits.

The objection to the HRC's go well beyond those limits, the entrapment, the creeping work into content etc. So it isnt about oral versus written or anything like that, these are all red herring and legalistic arguments. It is and always will be about where the line is on government power.

Is Warmna's lawsuit an attack on free speech? At one level not at all...anyone is free to sue anyone else...you cant stop it nor should you. You just have to be sure that the process is fair and not open to abuse (unlike the HRC process).

I am still curious about the process of what happens when someone drops the suit the day before, I believe that would leave them open to a counter suit, but I could be wrong, the judge may still turn around and impose a penalty for frivilous waste of the courts and defendents resources....but perhaps a lawyer can answer that one.

The troubling part of suit is in fact suing of Kate for comments not posted, nor encouraged by her. That is the part that has real legal precedence and effect should it go against her. The others are being sued for comments they made and published. This is the difference.

This is the problem for the blogosphere. Look at what happened with Ezra and Ming the Merciless. Ridiculous comments buried in a long post. How much care and duty does the blog owner have to police....my answer would be some, but it isnt absolute since that removes the responsibility of the poster creating moral hazard, the equivalent of letting graffitti writers off the hook and blaming the building owner even if he has film, names and addresses of the perpetrators.

So whatts the point. The HRC's, and Warman's activities with them, can be seen as an enemy of free speech. Kind of tautological since the seek to regulate speech and communication therefore it is a limit on free speech. Its all about reasonable or unreasonable limits, always has been. The secondary argument is then about the adjudication of those limits. The process arguments cut to the fact that the law is not being applied equally, fairly or in a manner consistent with any other applications of state power.

This lawsuit on the surface is not but it has implications not just for blogs but any content provider that lay under the surface.. I do wish many would move beyond their ideological blinkers to see that. Sarah Polley, as often as I disagree with her politics appears to see the salient point. The government should NOT be expanding its role in managing communication.

The quibble I have with Polley is that that generally the payer has influence on the content. This raises an issue of whether government money should be used...period...to fund arts projects, or if they are should they only be used for infrastructure purposes and not content creation....its a tough argument...and one that will continue forever.

I am sympathetic to her argument though that the funding cannot nor should be revoked after the fact. to claim credit. Nonetheless I agree that the government should not be getting into the specifics of the content...subject to existing laws. But the goverment could say that projects that end up R rated, as an example, will not be eligible

This raises one final interesting point. What would happen if the government funded a project, since funding is allegedly blind, that was subject to HRC complaint. Would the government as funder be liable, would only the writer? would the actors? I am surprised Syed Sowhardy hasnt complained to the HRC about the movie True Lies....should it be removed from video store shelves and banned in this country....or what about anyone of a number of 70's "blaxploitation" films, as there is heavy use of the "N" word.

These are examples to show that there is a reason why the government is kept out of the content evaluation business and probably should be for the most part. This isnt about limits versus no limits, there have always been limits.

This is about containing government involvement in communication for all the reasons that all government activity is limited and regulated...unintended consequences, potentioal for abuse and finally, the starting point do humans choose to give up their freedom in certain areas to live in a society or do humans fight to gain whatever freedom they have have....I think freedom belongs to individuals who agree to surrender parts of it for common and individual benefits. Government belongs to the people not the other way around.

I am a leftard, and I stood up for Kate. Just thought I'd throw that out there.

It has already begun to happen in the USA!!!

... ... ...

Christian Photographer Fined $6,637.94 For Not Filming Gays

The plaintiff, Vanessa Willock is currently an EEO Compliance Representative with the Office of Equal Opportunity where she investigates claims of discrimination and sexual harassment.

The New Mexico Human Rights court sentenced Christian photographer Elaine Huguenin a fine of $6,637.94 for refusing to photograph a gay commitment ceremony.

... ... ...

from Gatewaypundit April 9 2008,

Didn't McClellands fellow travellers of the left censure and spank him not too long ago.If I remember correctly he screamed about his right to say FK the JOOS.Poor Robert,just another usefull idiot for Kinsellas agenda!

Posted by: john begley at April 12, 2008 9:39 AM

I shall forward correspondence forthwith, to the aforementioned party on your behalf, recommending acceptance of your sincerest apologies and sentiments.

Anything else I can do for you today? My Legal Aid rate is $195/hr. and $350 for those paying themselves. You have to cue for the legal aid rate. Don't blame me, my secretary is new and still learning about double billing.

Hugger

People have been suing each other for libel regarding published opinions in Canada, and in the Western world, for centuries.

Nothing new here. No precedent.

Litigation is very expensive, and even after winning, plaintiffs typically only recover half their costs. The hope is that getting and collecting damages will result in profit, or at least a break-even.

If a defendant lacks money, the tort, if won, will end up a money-losing exercise.

I was reading a malicious prosecution finding the other day. The plaintiff, a police officer, won, hands down. The plaintiff claimed $50,000 in costs based upon legal fees.

The judge found that excessive and awarded $7,500.

Jurisdictions award costs based upon a scale, which only reflect a portion of true costs.

If this seems unfair, keep in mind that this applies to successful defendants as well. If you successfully defend against a lawsuit, you will typically still be out tens of thousands of dollars _after_ being awarded costs.

The cost of the average lawsuit in Canada, from filing to completion, without appeal, is $63,000.

No wonder 40% of defendants end up representing themselves.

Most libel cases do not have large awards, though Warman's is heading that way unless people start noticing that the IP being associated with Warman is actually that of a Rogers load-sharing proxy servicing some 700,000 users back in 2003-2004 -- including me.

http://bouquetsofgray.blogspot.com/2008/04/why-there-is-room-for-doubt-about.html

ET: I thought, oral meant "not written down" except of course later by anthropologists etc. Like "folk music" before the advent of recorded sound etc.
Surely the internet is absolutely the opposite of "oral" in my common-folk understanding. The comments are written. Retreivable. Stored in archives and "google caches" whatever they are.
Perhaps this is an example of Tenebris' charge of over-application?

I DO agree with your more important observation though: what reputation???

In fact: here's my latest view. Kate and Kathy should sue for URE (uncompensated reputation enhancement). To whit: Warman was a lone but winning loser before this free speech war broke out. As Canada is peopled heavily by lefties on tenures of myriad kinds, and as a much greater proportion of lefties now know the tragic loser, and as most lefties agree with said loser and see him as a noble knight in defence of niceness, his reputation has been ENHANCED not reduced.

stephen - I disagree with Sarah Polley. I think that the taxpayers should not be funding Canadian films.

If filmmakers want to make a film, they should go to the taxpayer in a direct rather than indirect manner; get the taxpayer to who wants to fund that film, to financially support it. Instead, Canadian filmmakers insist that all Canadian taxpayers, whether they want to or not, fund their films. I think that the films should be on the market; if they are viable, someone will be interested and will fund them. If they are garbage - and many are - then, no-one will come forth to fund them.

The expectation of so many Canadians in the 'arts and culture' that Canadian taxpayers should support them 'just because' is elitist and arrogant.

"That's what a trial is for Balby."

Yup. That's my point, BCF.

It's scary going to those left blogs. Please don't make me go there again! Ewwwww!

Posted by: Soccermom at April 12, 2008 10:54 AM

Dear Soccer Mom,

Read the instructions for Political Party Apple Bobbing Quorums.

1. Hold your nose.

2. Learn to Bob your head in rhythm.

3. Only bite the Big Red things that float elusively by.

4. Avoid the bubbles. They might be farts.

Hugger

I very VERY politely disagree with Me No Dhimmi. Many of my Canadian friends, who are left-leaning people, are strongly outraged by this suit, and this man, and what he stands for. Perhaps I live in a small bubble of reasonable people, and perhaps I don't see what Me No Dhimmi sees, but I know of no one who thinks this jerk is doing right. Or even TRYING to do right. His attacks are pathetic and transparent and I can't wait to see him stopped. Neither can the company I keep. He is what gives us a bad name. I may not agree with everything that people on the right have to say, but I encourage the conversation. I think it's IMPORTANT to have both sides of the argument. Just my $0.02.

Quite right, Mr. Lady. And even Chomsky agrees with you.

me no dhimmi - no, 'oral' doesn't simply mean 'not written down'. As I've suggested to others, you can google 'orality vs literacy' and check out some things there. There is an enormous amount of research on oral vs literate communication. You'll also find that most communication research considers that the internet is 'oral'.

A mode of communication that is not written functions differently than one that is written. The key word is 'function'. It's hard to explain and this thread isn't the place for it, but the whole 'mode of operation' of an oral communication system is completely different than a literate one.

The literate one is linear; it has a 'first time speaker' (which is why you get the development of copyright - unheard of in an oral culture). Copies are meant to be exact duplicates of this 'first time'. Changes are frowned upon..The notion of 'ownership' of thoughts and ideas emerges - also unheard of in an oral culture. You get storage of these first 'editions'..etc.

The oral one is non-linear. There are no 'first-time speakers'; the idea or thought is meant to be debated, discussed, changed. The whole community, in a sense, 'owns' the idea. We can store these ideas but remember, storage isn't the key concept. For we can store all our blog postings, but who knows whether that idea is 'first time' expressed in this particular blog and wasn't previously discussed elsewhere? There isn't the concept of individual ownership as there is in a literate culture.

That's also why our defamation and libel laws will have to be changed; they can't handle the multiple authors and interactions of the internet.

Even the language structure changes when a society switches from and oral to literate communication method! (I did my PHD, in part, on that)..

As a libertarian, I have little good to say about the HRC. But they (progressives)are instigating this "war". To use their own weapons against them is a perfectly rational response. After all, as a woman, you are a protected group...unless their is a rule that disqualifies conservative females.

HRC them and donate any money to the conservative bloggers defense fund (just remember not to use double sided paper in the complaint).

Posted by: Mark Francis at April 12, 2008 2:33 PM

Excellent post, and very informative.

Hugger

ET: as usual you are playing with words.

Internet blogs and comments are written communication. It is just more casual and informal than before.

There is an enormous amount of research on oral vs literate communication.

Posted by: ET at April 12, 2008 3:21 PM

Yes, and there is an enormous amount of hot air that rises in the House of Commons on a regular basis. And you hold a PHD?

"The oral one is non-linear. " May I respectfully submit, this is only the case when one decides to move one's tongue horizontally, as opposed to vertically. I'm speaking about the real world of course, not that of Academia. The land of Alice and wonderment.

Of course, great court cases and their outcomes are oft determined by such conceptualizations of "rational thought."

The bones of it for average people, average Canadians is; are they going to trample what last vestiges of our rights that we have left? And, will we once again acquiesce?

Will we speak out in an organized and unified fashion, or will we once again submit to the ever so old tactic of divide and conquer?

We have both sides of the so called political spectrum espousing freedom, and decrying the erosion thereof. Yet, we argue over such things as the definition of Oral. Clinton said, it depends how you define is. Or was it, "IT". It is all such a waste of energy and intellect.

Hugger

So lets see if I have this straight. If we leftards don't howl at the moon alongside you then you'll sue us.

Posted by: Robert McClelland at April 11, 2008 11:32 PM

No Robert, I shall speak slowlyyyyyyyyyy. From hence forth when the far leftards libel us Cons by calling us Nazis etc. we are going to sue for libel. You see Robert, who travels the little yellow bus to school, we've had enough of the lefts' abuse and normally we'd thunk your sorry asses in debate but no more. It's time we used the far left's practice of suing us up the wazzo, we've learned from the masters of snot and bawling this Grass Hopper has grown up.

Take heed liberal and far leftard bloggers and forums, I'm taking notes and copying your Libelous attacks on Christians and Conservatives. The free ride is over, the left will have to live up to the unreasonable standards they set for the right hence forth.

And for the guy so self righteously going on about freedom of speech, Conservative Party of Canada style, (Can't be bothered to look up the post)

What about filibustering? What about Democracy? What about getting on with the Nations business? What about getting through committee and putting it before Parliament? What are you afraid of? Surely not Dion!

Filibuster
Submitted by Elizabeth May on 10 April 2008 - 9:55am.

There was a dramatic flourish as Conservative MP Jeff Watson pulled his McDonald’s meal from its Golden Arches paper bag. He grinned like the Cheshire Cat when asked how long his intervention might be. “Stay tuned,” he replied.

http://www.greenparty.ca/en/node/4293

Insult me, you dink. What do you care?

Hugger

Sorry to disturb your equanimity, Greg, but there is a great deal of research on the difference between oral and literate communication systems. Try googling the terms and reading a bit before you begin your sneer of contempt.
You might also check out the meaning of 'non-linear'.

Most societies in the history of this earth developed and maintained their knowledge base via oral means. The literate method only appeared in very large populations, and late in history. So, it's been an area of intense research, exploring how the human mind, both individually and collectively, deals with information when it is used/stored orally versus using a literate method. It's astonishingly different.

No, AQS- you are quite wrong. The fact that the blogosphere is 'written' doesn't make it operate in a literate fashion. It's oral. Try to do a bit of research.

The point I'm trying to make, with this focus on the difference between oral and literate systems of communication, is that the old laws of communication, which include copyright, patent and also, the laws of 'defamation' and 'libel' aren't correct when applied to the blogosphere.

The concepts of individual ownership of information, direct linear causality between one bit of information and a result - all of this is up for re-examination in our legal system. The blogosphere and internet are not just a faster method of communication, nor a more informal style. They deal with information in a manner that we are not used to...and it will take time to acknowledge this in our laws.

The idea of suing for comments on a blog is silly.

If a kid wanders down your back alley with a spray can, and paints a swastika on your garage door,or calls Richard Warman a bad name in paint, should you be sued? Or should you go after the miscreant with the spray can??

The carnival of Politically Correct is getting seriously stupid.

I just read the links, good grief don't the left read? Honestly their ignorance regarding what the HRC employees and Warman have done (and admited under oath) in the past by setting up their targets is assine. They have no idea that the HRC lacks morals, ethics or standards for Operating within Principled Standards.

Holy shite, I can't believe their ignorance and lack of knowledge. LOL they are debating a subject without any knowledge of the topic, Holy Hanna talk about a day late and a dollar short. Don't they read News Papers?

Holy cow rose I dont thunk you no waht lible izz, golly.

"I am among those who wonder why anyone would fall for Flea's preposterous caricature of the academy."

After more than 30 years of dealing with academics, I don't wonder at all.

I reiterate my earlier proposed solution. Add to the heading of a blog, in a disclaimer, a notice that nothing presented in the blog is represented as true or represented as a fact.

lookout, I kind of like the "Macabre Cad Whirr Run" (as in, Macabre Cad DID--not were--Run?) for Warman.

Warman has done everything he can to hit, then run. Any "light" and "clarity," ironically, is going to have to be furnished by him...

...which isn't going to happen anytime soon, methinks.

...i call on the Sgt Schultz clause over all this:

"I know nothing, see nothing, hear nothing".

Like the Canadian cases, the New Mexico travesty is indeed troubling. Fortunately, there is an appeals process that proceeds through both state and federal realms. Perhaps, eventually, to end with a US Supreme Court decision. Other attacks or threats to free speech in the US have been dealt with via this route.

Does Canada allow for or provide an appeals process for the CHRC's mayhem, or do its verdicts stand forever, ala Inquisition style?

Lynnh:

"To use their own weapons against them is a perfectly rational response."

I couldn't disagree more. To use the HRC against them just legitimizes it. I think all of here agree that the HRC needs to be stopped. We cannot support it in any form.

Besides, as if. They wouldn't allow us to use it.

balbulican blurted: "Holy cow rose I dont thunk you no waht lible izz, golly."

At the risk of repeating my comment to you at 1:01 pm Blobby, that statement you just made can be enough to launch a suit of equal merit to the one under discussion. It doesn't have to be legit to cost you money, does it?

Meaning, O paragon of blobitude, that the process is the punishment. How many bogus, merit less libel suits can -you- afford to fend off? Is your speech free if it costs you 20 grand every time you open your mouth?

Are you thick thick naturally, or do you practice?

balbulican:

I read your views in one of the Blogs Kate mentions. I was not impressed. You do know the National Post is involved as well don’t you? Your seeming pose of a cynical laden sophisticate, coupled with a sense of superior condensation, gets weak after a while. You folks incredibly seem to think this is only for Conservative Bloggers while your buddy Mark too is under the hammer. See any disconnect here?

These are not isolated events. Someone wants too change the rules big time for the WWW for their own perfidious reasons. I say that because when have humans ever let something alone that works without dominating it to the point of near collapse? Using us & you to make it a president, or have a government imperator put on to enforce an individuals or groups will against personnel conscience. A great evil in my eye’s.

Time will tell who's right, but by that time you as well will face the wall. These Nazis will not allow a last cigarette Every Act, statue, enforced bylaw multiplied by age equals slavery. Read about it in any Library. Its called compounded Tyranny. All for our good right?

Keep on your seat of the mocking, for in the end all you cherish will be devoured as well.

Don't get insulted, but is it socialisms job to be wholly devoted to spreading ignorance?

Posted by: ET at April 12, 2008 4:46 PM

Speaking of sneering, while you were occupied with self indulgent unwarranted admiration, you simply missed the point. A caricature I have found to be common to academics of all colours.

While more enabled to partake in the joy of life long study of the anatomy of a Musca domestica (Linnaeus),(google that) they remain seemingly inept in the art of practical application of common sense and applications thereof.

The point was the common goal of Free Speech. Is that too heady for you, or do you simply prefer random meanderings?

Further more, I accept your respectful submission.

Hugger

Oy. Look, ignoring the tug-of-war over terminology, here's another way to look at the question of how blog comments should be legally taxonimized: To the degree society supports certain narrowly defined cases of valid libel or slander claims, should blog comments that cross that legal line be considered libel or slander?

Prof. Reynolds has an excellent article on the matter regarding US law, where the sanctions against slander are more leniant that those against libel. He says slander. ET says oral. I agree with them both.

Reynolds, Glenn Harlan
“Libel in the Blogosphere: Some Preliminary Thoughts”
Washington Law Review, Vol. 84, p. 1157, 2006

papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1030527

(Pick a link under Download Document.)

Renaissance artists would not have produced so many masterpieces if their patrons, Medicis and others, had simply given them blank cheques to be creative. It is not an offense against free speech for a patron to attach conditions to money given to an artist. Let our film-makers find real patrons who will make real demands on them.

The government-fed film-makers cannot be compared with the blogmartyrs of free speech. The latter are being hauled before the pseudo-courts for expressing negative emotions. Laws against "hate" are implicitly laws against love. If someone loves something, truly loves it, they hate what would destroy it. There is no love without hate. There is no hate without love. Love and hate are part of our natural endowment for dealing with life, both individually and socially.

If only wargirl, Steacy and his blind servant, and others in the hercs, were questioned on the Cools post in a real courtroom with real lawyers.

I believe I understand ET's comments with regards to oral versus literate communications. This thread being an example of oral communications given the nature of the exchange. Proximity has nothing to do with it, alla the telephone.

The problem is legal definition though, rather than academic. Which has yet to be decided. A blog such as this is, afterall, defined as electronic publishing.

"That's also why our defamation and libel laws will have to be changed; they can't handle the multiple authors and interactions of the internet." - ET

Will have to be changed, or defined as they have to do with the internet, legally.

---------------

I'm wondering if and when Macleans/Rogers will sue Barbara Hall and the OHRC for the published comments she made regarding their case. Public charges, even a conviction of "Islamophobia" without due judicial process strikes me as libelous and defamatory.

vitruvius - yes, slander is an oral mode of communicating defamation. But, as you know, my differentiation between oral and literate cultures isn't simply the mode of communication; that mode has infrastructural properties within the whole society. However..that's another topic.

Glenn Reynolds, the founder of Instapundit, has impeccable credentials. He's Distinguished Professor Law, Tennessee, and focuses on the internet etc.

He writes:
" questions of blog-related libel should be
treated differently than libel in newspapers, books, or television broadcasts."

Why? Because of the nature of the internet, made up as it is, of 'authors' who cannot necessarily be defined as 'original authors' - as they can, in the literary medium.

"Under these
circumstances, however, the blog operator is immunized from liability by the
Communications Decency Act. 47 U.S.C. §230(c)(1) provides that “No provider
or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or
speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.”9

"Another reason why blog libel lawsuits may be rare has to do with culture. First,
bloggers generally blog about public figures, meaning that a plaintiff would have
to show “actual malice” – that is, the publication of defamatory matter with
knowledge of its falsity, or with reckless disregard as to whether it is true or
false.13"

"Mere statements of personal opinion, of course, cannot give rise to libel. See, e.g.,
Penn Warranty Corporation v. DiGiovanni, —NYS2d —, 2005 WL 2741947 (2005) (Noting, in
context of defamation suit over consumer-complaint website, that “statements that merely
express opinion are not actionable as defamation, no matter how offensive, vituperative, or
unreasonable they may be.”)

He specifically says that current libel law is based "on an industrial-age
paradigm: Information, at least valuable information, is comparatively expensive
and hard to find, and tends to be a mass-produced commodity."
That's the mode that I define as 'literate information' with a particular author.

The internet doesn't work this way; errors are corrected almost immediately and remember, the internet has multiple authors, even if those authors are not blog owners but are commenters.

"Making up your own mind is key, and the lack of the voice-of-authority is a
characteristic of the blogosphere. If we police defamation more severely than
slander because we think that people will believe what they read in the newspaper
more than what they hear over the water cooler, then blogs might better be
analyzed under slander than defamation."

Exactly. The internet communication is like gossip; many voices, many views. The internet corrects errors rapidly - maybe not on that post but on others.

"Search engines like Google, Technorati, etc. have the effect of undercutting
authority by making the full story readily available."

"libel laws are out-of-date in a time
when the victims of defamation have the means of response via the
internet that they never had in print or broadcast."

The internet is self-correcting about facts. If Warman doesn't like what he reads about himself on one site, he can post his version on another site.

"People can generally
tell – I’m pretty sure that nobody actually thinks I drink blended puppies – and thus
the harm done to reputations by any particular blog posting is likely to be quite
low."

Our old libel laws assume that the public is ignorant, is a passive recipient of The Truth as written in the Newspaper or spoken by the TV pundit. That's a rejection of the capacity of the ordinary person to reason, to think...

"This leads me to suggest a few ways in which treatment of defamation in the
blogosphere should be different. First, I think that the threshold of harm should be
fairly high. Since defamation law is intended to remedy actual harm to people’s
reputations, courts should take cognizance of the reality that blogs are not
generally relied on as sole sources of information:"

"Third, courts should take into account the ease with which plaintiffs can get their
own story out, via blogs and other electronic media, too. Indeed, a plaintiff who
feels injured can start a blog, publish his/her response, and – via a link to the
offending post – be confident that his or her version will be readily discoverable
via Technorati. This sort of self-help might even be regarded as necessary
mitigation."

"It’s a rough-and-tumble
world, not a place where Marqis of Queensbury rules apply."When it comes to free speech, we must all hang together or we
are all too likely to be hanged separately."

Thanks, vitruvius. It's an excellent article.

irwin daisy - yes, I agree with you. Barbara Hall and the OHRC's published comments on the case, with the judgment of 'Islamophobia' is indeed defamation. In the current legal sense of libel.

I'm glad you liked it, ET, it thought it was excellent too. By the way, when I said colloquium earlier in this thread, I used that word incorrectly. I was thinking more of a salon or hot-stove setting, so I should have used the word symposium, in the sense of "A convivial meeting for drinking, music, and intellectual discussion among the ancient Greeks" ;-)

greg ?....so you run yer practice out of a pool hall ?...is that why i have to "cue' for an interview ?

Because, in case you haven't noticed, there's really no way for me to lose. I may shell out a few dollars over this complaint, but the precedent will be a gold mine. The Canadian left have provided me the fodder for a full time career as a plaintiff.

So, hurry now.

Purge.

KATE!!, a precisely aimed return shot across the liebrals bow, aim a little lower next time. Best wishes for smooth sailing in teh future.

Posted by: ET at April 12, 2008 8:40 PM

That was much better. I presented a number of the same points elsewhere recently. We need to focus efforts, speak wherever we are listened to and above all avoid obfuscation.

Just keep in mind that
it takes two to tango
and it takes two to fence
and they're both dances.

Posted by: john begley at April 12, 2008 9:18 PM

Sometimes. My soap box is portable.

Posted by: Vitruvius at April 12, 2008 11:18 PM

Ah Yes, the dance. The personification of freedom of speech.

Aye lad, funny how that works.

now how much would Kate make from Canadian Cynic, Warren Kinsella, Dawg, McLellan got to be a hell of a lot of good dirt there.

"That's what a trial is for Balby. You may want to keep that in mind rather than pronounce on the guilt of others as you have been doing."

So blazingcatfur are you offended maybe we should launch chrc complaints!

Red Tory has a good post

Did I say that? What's the wait for a cat scan?

Agreed, Dinosaur. It was Red Tory's essay that changed my mind to better appreciate what is wrong with Canada's libel and slander statutes. I have a rather long essay on the matter, if you're interested, here: tinyurl.com/4g29yx

ET: "Marshall Mcluhan was an idiot"

How you can dismiss one of Canada's greatest and most original thinkers as an "idiot" is beyond me. Do you have a BA and an MA from the University of Manitoba, and a BA, MA, and PhD from Cambridge (not a university known for bestowing doctorates on "idiots")? And of course, Mcluhan earned all these honours years before the PC crowd took over the campuses.

As Mcluhan noted, the message of cars was not the "content" of any individual car; it was suburbs, highways, big oil, and the separation of living and working spaces. The message of ICBM's was not the content of any missile (none of which were ever fired), but the Cold War, proxy wars in the 3rd world, and existential angst throughout the West.

And your reference to the 'net as an "oral medium" is just laughable. Oral interchange allows for sudden changes and sidetracks; on the 'net, I still have to read your entire comment to see if it makes sense. When I read non-coherent entries on this, and any other blog, I automatically dismiss the author as a fool. You still need to express yourself properly in orthographic, linear fashion, which oral speech does not require.

Wait a second. This medium doesn't allow sudden changes and sidetracks? I would have thought the opposite: it's famous for them. By the way, have you seen the famous MacEwans Engineering Manure Remover?

But seriously, returning to some ideas I skirted around before, libel should apply to colloquia ~ they are supposed to be that formal. Symposia, on the other hand, what with all the drinking, music, and dance, should be held to what should be the lower standard of slander.

And I guess that's what I've realized from thinking about the discussion above: blogs are symposia, not colloquia. They're conversational, not reference. They're dance, not accounting.

Virtruvius,
I don't know where you got the idea that the defence of truth -- technically, justification -- can be defeated by an allegation of malice, but it's not true. The defences of fair comment and qualified privilege can be defeated by malice, but truth is, in the words of the author of a leading text, a complete defence. From Raymod E. Brown's text on defamation law in Canada:

"Justification or the truth of the matter asserted is a complete defence to an action for defamation. The published material must be false. What is true cannot be defamatory. No one can be heard to complain if only the truth is published about him. A plaintiff has no right to have his or her character or reputation free of an imputation that is not false.

The difficult with pleading justification is that the burden is on the defendant to prove the truth of the statement of fact. Not merely an honest belief. The truth. I think the defendants will have a difficult time doing that.

As for the argument that special legal rules should be developed so that the denizenss of the "blogosphere" should able to libel
at will because the internet in general and blogs in particular are some sort of magical truth-seeking machine, it is as silly and as poorly researched and reasoned as most of the legal arguments ET has trotted out on this and other subjects. I wouldn't trust her to argue a traffic ticket, much less trust her proposal in a complex area of law such as defamation.

I've tried discussing issues with you before, Truewest, and you always turn out to be a disappointment, so I'm not going to bother again. You are a bait and switch hatchet man. Fool me once &c.

Vitruvius, I understand your point but would this not mean that the only defendant(s) named in this lawsuit actually subject to a charge of libel would be Jonathan Kay and the National Post? Seems to me this would be a dangerous and unfair proposition.

Don't get me wrong, I'm sickened by this and while I find the MSM takes the side of caution far too readily, I would hate to see them held to more strict controls than they already seem to impose on themselves.

I think what is needed is a modernization of our libel and slander laws and either abolishment or significant restrictions placed on the use of Section 13(1).

It is my belief that the CHRC, though its mishandling of Section 13(1) cases, has been a catalyst to this libel suit. Moreover, due to their lack of responsible oversight, serious questions are being raised about the ethical behavior of their agents and much evidence presented at many of these hearings could now be, to say the least, suspect.

Without their apparent tolerance of shadowy investigative techniques, we would not be where we are today. To accept that posting messages in kind on a Neo-Nazi website will somehow only have the desired result of information gathering but never serve to encourage more of the behavior/communication under watch is complete nonsense and/or demonstrates a willful ignorance of communication on the internet. But even if we were to accept this premise as true, under what authority are these people given a pass to escape the clutches of 13(1)? Their own, by pleading honorable intent? Take that reasoning a bit further and we have a quasi-judicial body that must now determine and rule on intent with every single case brought forward. So if the intent is deemed honourable, no harm has been done.

What a mess!

Vitruvius,
Call me names all you like - I'm not particularly interested in discussing the niceties of defamation law with a non-lawyer. But if you're going to propose reforming the law, you might try getting the existing law right in the first place. You didn't. Or rather, Red Tory didn't and you accepted his statement of the law as valid.

Far from being defined by the various Libel Acts, defamation law has evolved over 400 years and continues to evolve. That evolution will be influenced by the internet and weblogs, but it seem very unlikely that either courts or legislators are going to allow proprietors or posters on weblogs a free pass for posting defamatory material simply on the argument that "this is who we are".

arctic_front

You are right it will legitimize HRC and Section 13 but it may also destroy it. At the moment it is a tool that progressives use to beat anyone who disagrees with their agenda. Conservatives are always the defendands and bear all of the costs whether they win or lose. As noted, the process is the punishment since it is entirely biased towards the claimant.

What happens if conservatives that are part of the protected groups (gays, jewish, females, muslims) start to use the HRC to go after progressives that have "offended" them? I suspect they will shut them down. The MO was to monopolize the HRC weapon. Once the effects are felt on both sides and the progressives feel the financial pain, they will abandon their support of Section 13.

I agree with you, vitruvius, it's impossible to discuss anything with truewest.

He is indeed a 'bait and switch' hatchet man. He operates, always, the same way. He allways begins with his assertion of his superiority (he's always amused by our peasant-like ignorance); when challenged he retreats into slithering semantics and claims 'you don't understand', and ends up, always, with ad hominem. Actually a very typical type of a dried out leftist.

kevin b- it's easy for me to reject McLuhan and say he's an idiot. I don't give a damn about his degrees; it's his books and writings that concern me - and they are fatuous nonsense.

It's hardly innovative to state that 'the message of cars' isn't their content but their relations with the other objects in the envt and the infrastructure in which they operate. Heck- that kind of analysis has been around for centuries. That includes analysis of the development of the changes in, eg, family and spatial use when a society moves into domestication of animals, or the effect of the spear on control of space and food, or the results of writing, etc, etc.

And I repeat; the net is an oral medium. Don't confuse the term 'orality' with 'vocalization' or 'speech'. It's the structure of the interaction that is to be noted. You have to look at the whole Set of possible interactions in the net (heh -remember your words on McLuhan? Don't just look at the content of the sentence; look at the infrastructure in which it operates).

And the net's infrastructure is oral, enabling rapid interaction of multiple particpants, changes in meaning, terms increasing or decreasing in meaning-content, spreading to a larger population..changing as they go. That's oral.

Nothing to do with properly expressing yourself. Heck, even oral speech requires that. I think that 'man bites dog' is different from 'dog bites man'...whether spoken or written.

Despite all the fancy conversations some of you are having here,
which to me are mostly packaging and not so much substance,
I remain convinced the freedom of speech of the left is not as seriously threatened
- if it is threatened at all -
as the freedom of speech of the right is.

Believe me the people who want the Kate McMillens and Mark Steyns of this world to shut up are not spending hours debating on what is oral, verbal or literate and who was a great philosopher or who has how many university degrees.

You are missing the big picture.

ET,
If you stop demonstrating your peasant-like ignorance, particularly in legal matters, I'll stop commenting on it. Don't expect to see that any time soon, given your willingness to weigh in on the complexities of, first, constitutional law and now defamation law without doing a lick of research.
FYI,
- the Criminal Code provisions on defamatory libel, which you considered at length in relation to Warman's lawsuiton another thread, have precisely NOTHING to do with the case at hand, or civil defamation generally.
- Glenn Reynolds may be an esteemed professor of law, but his comments that most defamatory comments on the web involve public figures who must prove actual malice in order to succeed in a defamation claim has no application in Canada. The public figure doctrine is based on a 1960s US Supreme Court decision, Sullivan v. New York Times that our courts, including the Supreme Court have repeatedly refused to adopt.

ahh, true west - is your self-esteem being threatened? You, the noble lord-of-the-manor,can't handle criticism and so are threatening me that you'll continue to comment against me, whom you define as a peasant? How's that for mixing with the farmyard...

heh. Take it elsewhere, truewest. That includes your incredible pompous self-asserted superiority and your endless semantic twists.

Now, Glenn Reynolds is an esteemed legal mind. You, on the other hand, are not. I concur with Vitruvius' conclusion about you.

So - Cheers.

ET,
Kind of missing point here, arent you? You can whine about my tone all you want, but that doesn't change the fact that you got the law wrong -- ridiculously, absurdly wrong in fact.
Indeed, you have repeatedly mistated or misinterpreted the law, without apology or correction. So, I'm sorry, but this isn't about my self-esteem at all. It's about the sloppiness and intellectual dishonesty with which you approach this particular subject.

So yes, if you continue to post your ill-informed musings on the law, I will continue to point out your gross errors. That's not a threat -- interesting that you would view correction and criticism of your factual errors as a "threat" -- but an attempt to prevent you from misleading others.
Cheers yourself

PS I'm sure Glenn Reynolds is just dripping with esteem and his description of the public figure doctrine is accurate enough . That doesn't change the fact that his pronouncement on this particular aspect of American defamation law have no application -- zero, nada, zilch -- in this country. You might as well cite shariah law to make your point.

I don't have a dog in the fight with regard to Truewest, but inasmuch as regards his comments about civil and criminal defamation and Glenn Reynolds, he is correct.

skip - we aren't talking about current laws in Canada; we are talking about how they should be changed - and why.

Therefore, truewest's pompous claims of 'the way it is now' are utterly irrelevant. As is truewest.

ET,
Since you clearly don't understand what the laws are now, you're hardly in a position to suggest how they should be amended. And since you don't seem able or willing to do the research that would allow you to understand why the laws came to be the way they are now, any suggestions you might make are, to borrow your words, entirely irrelevant.
Indeed, given your woeful record of legal interpretation, from your inaccurate analysis of the Charter to your imaginative (but ill-informed) parsing of s.13(1) of the Canadian Human Rights Act, the notion that you have any credible idea to bring to the reform of defamation law is laughable.

Posted by: Friend of USA at April 13, 2008 11:54 AM

The Grasshoppa has learned well.

Hugger

Aye lad, funny how that works.

Posted by: Vitruvius at April 12, 2008 11:46 PM

Don't know if you caught my earlier comments on lawyers and the big dupe, but...

See what I mean?

Even the wannabe's, and the soon to be's just can't help themselves. Fortunately it's not billable.

Ach Cap'n, I'm given her all she's got!

Second Star to the right, straight on til morning.

Hugger

truewest (or is it NS?) you always write as if you've just swallowed a lemon. Sour, malicious, mean-spirited, dried up...Ah well.

As for your legal expertise, if I recall correctly, at one time, you affirmed you were NOT a lawyer. So, stuff it. My opinion is equal to, and in my non-lemon-aid view, better than yours.

Now, I'll take vitruvius' advice - and he, by the way, is someone here whose intellect, knowledge, wit and analytic ability are in the top 1% of everyone -- I'll take his advice and no longer answer or interact with you. Cheers. Do you really need that lemon?

Warman should sue Al Gore for inventing the Internet, which has caused people not like Warman.

ET,
I said I wasn't a lawyer. Never said I hadn't studied law.
In any case, this isn't about opinions. It's about whether or not you actually understand the law you propose to reform or whether, like Vitruvius, you propose to rewrite it from scratch, on the back of an envelope. And do so without concerning youself with 400 years of jurisprudence or indeed, the pesky detail of the state of the law today. (Which doesn't sound very conservative to me, but I digress).

There is no question that the internet and the blogosphere raise new issues in defamation law. In addressing those issues, courts and legislatures will have to strike a balance between the protection of reputation and freedom of speech and the press. They will have to address various technical issues, such as whether proprietors are liable for comments posted on their sites or whether you can be sued for linking to a defamatory post. But courts and legislatures have struck that balance and addessed those issues in past. When they do so again, I expect and hope that they will be guided by well-established legal principles and not by the goofy scribblings you and Vitruvius has set out above.

The Reynolds article makes some interesting points, but he tap-dances around the central reason why slander and libel are treated differently: permanance. Slander is fleeting and therefore damages cannot be presumed. Libel sticks around and can be presumed to cause harm.
In that sense, his suggestion retraction and apology should be a full answer in the blogosphere makes some sense, but only if it can be shown that as many people saw the retraction as the libel, which could arguably rebut any presumption of harm. The rest is less persuasive. A unretracted defamatory statement posted on the internet remains accessable and searchable for years to come. Reynolds may see bloggers as being less authoritative than newspaper, but those who run and frequent them these little echo chambers and who denounce the MSM at every turn, have a different.
Incidentally, it should be noted that Reynolds's argument would have precious little effect on the Warman defamation suit. While some bloggers may have removed the impugned allegations, I don't recall seeing a retraction and apology (other than in the Post) and, indeed, some of the defendants continue to publicly assert the truth of the allegation.
If a blogger insists on the truth of something the claimant says is a lie, he or she better be prepared to prove the truth of the statement, just as a print or broadcast journalist would be required to do.

Greg,

when you say

The Grasshoppa has learned well.

I honestly do not know what you mean.

Let me explain, for the first half of my life I only spoke French so there are occasionally some expressions in English I do not get.

If Greg will not, could some kind soul help me with the "grasshopa" comment?

Friend, I think it may be this fable:

http://www.dltk-teach.com/fables/grasshopper/mstory.htm

Friend of USA,

From the TV show Kung Fu (I think it was a 70's show) ... the master called the student grasshopper.

I'm going to finally close this thread out of my tabs, and I must say, it's been a slice, thanks for your interlocution folks. After all is said and done, I have to return to the last sentance of the final version of my essay on this matter as referenced above, which reads: I still think that a rush to judgment, unless one's hand is forced by temporal circumstances, is a bad idea, at least when considered from the perspective of one's own good. I think I'll stand on that.

This is yet another reason the U.N. should never be given control of the internet.

America might get a little weird with the copyright laws, but they'll never censor political speech like Canada is doing or the U.N. has proposed.

Posted by: truewest at April 13, 2008 7:22 PM

Personally, I think it's you who don't get it. Jurisprudence be damned. That's exactly what's wrong and what's at stake here. Do you understand the KISS principle? Hopefully, as that is what needs to be applied and fought for.

Its when the suits carrying microsofts latest version of your life in a box, begin to work their magic of convolution and obscuring everything, that Freedom becomes the casualty.

People like this HRC affiliate will forever cry foul, and look for new ways to do so, particularly when they see a greater opportunity to farm.

He's a big boy, and can sling it pretty good, so what's stopping him from defending himself on the multiple available internet forums? If he feels he is so aggrieved, then give back. Anyone who has an average ability to write can rebuke outlandish statements intended solely for the purpose of character assassination. It's like shooting fish in a barrel.

You seem fixated on the seriousness of blog entries and there effects. I don't presume to speak for all people, just a sizable segment that matters. That being critical thinkers. Believe half of what you read and less of what you hear, was spoken by a true optimist. If you want to somewhat effectively address truth and lies, more focus on Government please. People actually believe a lot of what they say. Flip side is, those who are so easily convinced by low mentality attacks already came to the table with their minds made up, and in reality, few of them read a whole lot anyway, especially about this type of thing.

In the end, the true intent of an individual will show through the dirt and mud slinging. I would suggest a good dose of class for this aggrieved soul, it works wonders in convincing people that you are who and what you say you are.

For example, I have heard bad things about this blog and Ms. Kate. Is one of the reasons why I came here, to find out the truth for myself. The TRUTH! Yes Charlotte, I can handle the truth.

Hugger

Kate, I hope you will take any defense money that is left over and sue those who have called you a Nazi, a racist, and KKKate.

With the rate of donations from across the world, you'll surely have a massive war chest at your disposal. This will get really interesting, really quickly.

Greg,
I'm sorry but I think you're being unrealistic and cavalier in suggesting the "Jurisprudence be damned". If people are telling lies about Warman - and I presume you're speaking of Warman here -- why should he have to spend his life wandering from blog to blog, denying those allegations in front of a hostile audience? Defamation law recognizes that we have the right to a reputation and the right to redress when that reputation is damaged by falsehoods. The medium in which the damage occurs is irrelevant. Indeed, as we've seen in the Warman case, the allegation can move quickly and easily from blog to paper.

I sense from your earlier post that you fear a floodgate effect, with defamation lawyers filing suits in response to every slight on the internet. That fear is, I think, unfounded. Defamation suits that go to trial are seldom if ever profitable cover their costs; damages awards are generally modest in Canada and costs awards cover only a small portion of legal fees. In short, you'd have to be crazy or rich to make a hobby of filing defamation actions.

Thanks Jan and thanks Ural,

Although to be honest, I am still not clear on what Greg was trying to say.

so I will just pretend I get it that he was paying me a compliment and leave it at that!

Posted by: truewest at April 14, 2008 9:49 AM

In cases where the scope of interest is large, then perhaps the person in question might be obliged to spend some time pasting a given message, blog to blog. Nature of the beast. Few things are perfect. If addressed on the largest forums, which would be the targeted audience, trickle down would take care of the rest that are of consequence. Redress should be, and is usually afforded by the same means as were the offending statements.

These suits may well not be currently profitable for those who bring them, but are in fact profitable for the Lawyers. One must sow the seeds, before one can reap the bounty.

The overall effect of this type of restriction, is not dissimilar to the internet filtering, monitoring and censoring software that exists and has been provided to countries like China and Iran by companies such as Yahoo, Google and Cisco.

So, the choice seems clear, not unrealistic, nor cavalier. Do we wish to accept further restrictions on access to information and freedom of speech as exists in the aforementioned countries? To further that thought, do we want to hide xenophobes, racists, hate mongers and opportunists or do we want to know where to find them? You never know, rational thought might just have an effect on some of them, or more likely some who visit their sites. We will never have the chance to do that, if they are kept from circulating their material. These sentiments will always exist, better to air them and try to deal with it, than to suppress it and feed the anger.

In other areas of the blogosphere there is also reward in free access, such as you can learn a lot about a public figure, particularly if they choose to run an open blog. That's a good thing, as it strips away many previously strictly guarded fallacies.

So, do we speak to our elected representatives on this subject, and clearly put forward demands supporting freedom on the internet, or do we do the Canadian? Show our bellies and hope for a scratch.

If Jurisprudence is allowed to exercise its long standing patterns, then I expect we should prepare for this medium to be changed forever. Consider how many blogs and open forums would disappear under the weight of broad changes in liability.

Greg,
Since you appear to believe in the power of the blogosphere to cure defamatory statements (as if by magic) perhaps you would like to try a little experiment.

Provide me with a legally executed release allowing me, or a person of my choosing, to post a defamatory statement of fact about you at, say, five blogs of my choosing. The release will specify that I am allowed to use your real name and that there shall be no limits placed on the words I may use or the sort of accusation I may level. It will further specify that you have consented to this extraordinary waiver of your right to take legal steps to protect your reputation because you believe that the internet should be free from legal constraints of any kind, and that the proper and only answer to any defamation is the right of reply in the forum where the impugned statement was posted.
We can sort out the precise wording later, but you get the drift. Let me know